UDA seeks £3m to give members jobs

Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy held talks with the Ulster Defence Association less than 72 hours after all-out war between one of the group's 'brigades' and a rival loyalist terror organisation was narrowly avoided.

The minister and his officials discussed ways of bringing the UDA and its political wing into peaceful constitutional politics at last Tuesday's meeting.

Murphy was asked for £3 million of taxpayers' money to help the UDA establish legitimate security firms across Northern Ireland that can provide employment to hundreds of its members.

Yet The Observer has learnt that police officers had to draw their guns to prevent a mass Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) attack last Sunday afternoon on UDA members drinking in a north Belfast pub. The planned assault on the bar near the LVF stronghold of Ballysillan occurred after UDA men loyal to Jim Spence, the West Belfast brigadier, beat up several of their rivals in the splinter group at the Heather Street social club the night before.

What started out as a row over loyalist drug dealers giving a lethal 'snowball' cocktail of drugs to a Shankill Road teenager who later died of two strokes and a heart attack has escalated into a looming war between the two factions in Belfast.

'Sunday on the Crumlin Road was like a scene from the Wild West,' said one leading loyalist on the Shankill Road, 'The police had to pull out their guns to stop the LVF hitting the bar. There was a standoff outside the pub with the rival gangs facing each other. It could have started the feud off big time only the cops arrived in time.'

Behind the West Belfast UDA's drive against the LVF are fears over the impact of Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair's release from prison in January. Spence and his fellow UDA leaders want to deny Adair any base in Belfast on which he can build an alternative loyalist movement. Last month the UDA in the west of the city put leaflets in the doors of the Lower Shankill estate - Adair's former power base - warning locals not to fraternise with 'Mad Dog' on his release. Since the summer a further 20 families have fled the Lower Shankill following a campaign of UDA intimidation. Those expelled were suspected of harbouring sympathy for Adair, who has vowed revenge against former comrades involved in the expulsion of his wife Gina and up to 20 of his supporters in 2003.

The looming loyalist feud in West Belfast illustrates the problems facing the UDA leadership as it tries to move the organisation out of mass criminality and into politics. The organisation's de facto leader, the South Belfast UDA commander Jackie McDonald, has put out a general order calling on all units to desist from drug dealing.

Following the meeting between the UDA's political representatives and the government, Paul Murphy was reported to have been impressed with McDonald's efforts to move the largest loyalist paramilitary force out of criminality towards community-style politics.